


close to the sun in lonely lands

by fenfare



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol, Birds, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, M/M, Original Uchiha Characters, Pining, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 6,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24376390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenfare/pseuds/fenfare
Summary: A series of Madara-centric hashimada drabbles, from tumblr.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 15
Kudos: 73





	1. without weaving a single sign

madara wakes to the sound of rain. he stirs. the light outside the window is soft and pale. it must be just after sunrise. his head feels heavy, and he holds his breath as he gingerly retreats farther into the blankets. his hair is tangled around his neck, and a strand of it is tickling hashirama’s forehead. madara watches hashirama’s chest rise and fall, stares at his serene smiling face with a sort of dazed wonder. 

he’s had a long night. he wants nothing more than to go back to sleep. he must have only gotten back and collapsed into bed an hour or two ago; he hadn’t thought to check the time. he closes his eyes. a strand of hair brushes his nose. without warning he sneezes and the gash in his chest violently reopens. madara groans and curls in on himself. his messily wrapped bandages are coming loose; he presses his hand to the wound and it comes away wet and sticky. he quickly rolls over, not wanting to bleed on hashirama’s sheets, and the motion jolts hashirama awake as well. immediately he can tell something is wrong.

“madara?” he says, blinking as he comes to. madara’s jaw is clenched and his breathing is shallow. he looks up at hashirama through a swimming haze of vague, unfocused pain, and tries to blink his hair out of his eyes.

hashirama takes charge immediately. “hold still,” he murmurs, stripping back the blankets. he gently opens madara’s nemaki and lifts madara’s clenched hands from the bloody cluster of bandages. he gives a sharp exhale through his nose as he uncovers the gash.

“this wound is deep,” hashirama says. “no susanoo?”

madara hesitates. “i didn’t…want to use it.”

he slings his arm over his forehead, groaning. he can feel hashirama’s healing chakra buzzing in his chest, making a sort of vibrating echo between his ribs. it’s a strange, prickly feeling. one of his careful inhales snags in his throat and he coughs scarlet speckles of blood all over hashirama’s face.

“sorry,” madara rasps, once the urge to cough has subsided.

hashirama wipes it off with one hand, keeps the other gently but resolutely pressed to madara’s chest. “don’t worry, just—don’t move,” he says. “just lie still.”

they fall into a sort of rhythm then—madara’s dogged heartbeat and gradually slowing breath; hashirama’s deft fingers on his chest, brushing against his ribs; the odd, pins-and-needles sensation of skin and muscle knitting itself back together. after a while, hashirama closes his eyes as he works. his brow is furrowed; his hair is tucked hastily behind one ear. madara lets his eyes slide closed too. he’s tired, and he doesn’t want to see hashirama upset.

“oh, madara,” hashirama says quietly, removing his hands from madara’s chest at last.

madara cracks one eye open. he’s still awfully sore. “what?” he says.

“you could have woken me up,” hashirama says, “when you got back.” he sounds a little stung. that just makes madara feel worse.

“sorry,” he mutters, his face burning red. “i thought i had it under control.”

hashirama sighs, and slides back down onto the pillows. his hair goes everywhere. madara can feel his chakra disperse in a limp wave, and all the plants on the windowsill seem to droop from exhaustion in unison. “i’m just glad you’re all right,” he says. his eyes are red. a tear leaks out of one of them. “madara, promise you’ll tell me when you’re not all right.”

madara is too tired and sore to laugh, but he does anyway. it’s a short, harsh thing. hashirama is just as bad at this as he is, and they both know it. “i will if you do,” he says, and he means it.

“deal,” hashirama mumbles into the pillow, and in an instant they’re both asleep.


	2. peach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Every time you see that smile, it feels like there must be some kind of mistake.

laughter is bubbling up from hashirama’s throat. it doesn’t take much these days to get him laughing, not that it ever did. everything is easier now, but somehow that just makes it harder. they’re sitting barefoot in the peach tree beside the academy, sharing a pair of bento boxes, and with each laugh another bud bursts open around them. the air is full with laughter and blushing pink blossoms. madara hasn’t even _done_ anything. hashirama is just happy to be beside him.

hot panic rises in him, coming in waves. none of this should have ever happened. he doesn’t even know what he’s scared of. the next wave is one of shame. he’s wracked with it; he knows his face is turning red and his hands are clasped so tightly in his lap that his bare knuckles are quivering white.

seeing happiness should not put him on edge. he knows this, in some faraway corner of his mind. he wants it so _badly._ but it feels wrong after everything that has happened, jarring in a way that makes him feel like the world is spinning so fast it might snap his neck. madara is coarse and battle worn and feels irrevocably like he does not belong here. not in this tree, not next to this man, not in this state of joyous bliss.

hashirama is killing him and he loves it.


	3. praise + vices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompts.

_praise_

“you are,” hashirama rumbles against madara’s chest, “so beautiful,” they move together like that for one perfect second until hashirama adjusts his arms and madara scrambles to press himself more closely to hashirama’s body, “beneath me—“

madara gasps, claws down hashirama’s back with eager fingers. “say that again.”

“you are beautiful,” hashirama breathes. “madara, you are perfect.”

for a moment, with hashirama’s lips on his neck, madara almost believes him.

* * *

_vices_

he’s given up on sleep by now. he lights his pipe out on the balcony and finds with some dull surprise that the faintest gray light is spreading across the sky in the east. he’s seen a lot of sunrises like this lately. the still-night air is cold, but it offers just a hint of something gentle and fragrant, something that suggests spring is on its way after all. it’s been a long february.

he fills his lungs with smoke. it’s much nicer than katon smoke; it’s sweeter, softer in a way. no two exhales are ever the same. one breath tumbles straight out of his lungs in a long feathery cloud; he holds the next in his mouth for as long as he dares, and it pours from his throat and slips off his tongue in a thick curl.

the sky is brightening faster now. madara puts his feet up and sets the pipe aside. it’s strange, having nothing to do. for the moment, at any rate. but for the first time in a long time, it feels good.

he lifts the pipe to his lips again, then reconsiders and puts it out. perhaps he’ll try to sleep after all.


	4. laundry

“hashirama,” madara says. “help me with this end?”

hashirama’s head pokes out from behind a pair of madara’s trousers. “yes, dear,” he says, and together they carefully pin the quilt up on the clothesline that hashirama has hung in the garden between two cherry trees. the shadows go soft for a moment as a cloud moves in front of the sun, and a second later the ground is speckled with tiny raindrops.

madara steps back to survey their work. “it had better not rain for long,” he says, watching the garments tremble slightly on the clothesline. hashirama doesn’t respond. he’s closed his eyes, lifted his head to the rain. his nemaki is flapping open, exposing his bare chest, and his hair is rippling down his back like a shining dark river. madara is never sure how hashirama’s hair always manages to blow so elegantly, while anything greater than a minor breeze causes his _own_ hair to become even more of a tangled mess than it already was.

hashirama looks over at him. he has a peculiar glint in his eye. “we’ll be forced to go around naked,” he says, biting his lower lip, “until they all dry.”

madara laughs. “as if you needed an excuse to walk around naked.”

“madara, darling,” hashirama says, and lifts madara up into his arms. madara crosses his legs around hashirama’s back, cups hashirama’s face in his hands. the sun is out again. the cherry blossoms around them turn fiery pink. “i do it because i know you love it.”

now it’s madara’s turn to bite his lip. “maybe so,” he says, and kisses hashirama’s freckled nose.


	5. ultimatum

he doesn’t hurt anymore. not that he isn’t _injured_ —his breathing is coming ragged and something scrapes in his chest as he forces it to rise and fall—but the pain that has assaulted his body since he first unleashed the susanoo this morning has faded to a dull sort of throb, now that it’s all over. the ground beckons him to it and he lies there, nearly unfeeling, every cell in his body numb with exhaustion. he had always known it would come to this someday—known that somehow, eventually, _inevitably,_ he would fail to protect izuna, that hashirama would overwhelm him. it’s a fitting way to go out, he thinks, as the murky blur above him that he knows is hashirama slowly swims in and out of his vision. it had been nice, he thinks, to see hashirama clearly one last time before the end. it’s over, he tells himself again. it’s _over._

there’s a distant sort of _thunk_ as hashirama’s armor hits the charred ground at his feet. then the kunai in hashirama’s hand gleams as he withdraws it from the pouch at his hip. he can imagine the sensation already. it won’t even hurt, he thinks, if his current injuries are anything to go by. the shadows shift and change above him, dreamlike. some faint glimmer of his still-present survival instinct kicks into gear then. he can feel his heart beginning to race, half with anticipation, half with hot fear. he opens his eyes and—

_why has he taken off his armor?_

it dawns on him all at once. this is wrong, this is all _wrong_ —he moves without thinking, seizes hashirama’s warm hand as if it’s the last real thing in the world—it doesn’t even occur to him what he’s doing, or how the pain flashes all at once throughout his body as he launches himself forward—his fingers crush hashirama’s; he can feel the knuckles and the joints shifting even through the material of his gloves and hashirama looks at him with an expression of utter bewilderment. both their arms are trembling from the effort of countering each other. he barely registers what he’s just done, the ramifications of his abrupt foolishness. all around him the senju spectators are stepping back from the pair of them in surprise, but that doesn’t matter. he simply knows is that he cannot allow hashirama to take his own life. not—not ever.

“don’t,” he whispers, for just hashirama to hear. he can feel his vision beginning to leave him, but there’s still enough time to change hashirama’s mind before the blackness hits. “that’s enough.”


	6. truce

madara’s eyesight is impeccable again, and it’s strange now, seeing hashirama so clearly for the first time in years. he has relied on just his memory for so long. hashirama’s face is less round than he remembers; his cheekbones and his chin are sharper, and the tiny creases around his eyes and forehead are completely new.

hashirama has healed himself already, from the looks of it. madara stirs on his makeshift bedroll and blinks up at him, inspecting the dirt and the bruises here and there on his skin. before yesterday’s battle, he hadn’t landed a hit on hashirama for _years_. he _knows_ hashirama can counter him, knows that they’re evenly matched in combat, and it burns his throat to think of hashirama accepting his hits out of guilt, out of some mad desperate desire to make things between them even again.

he’s not tired anymore—or rather he doesn’t feel the need to close his eyes again. instead he’s stuck in a haze of confusion and contradiction—relief for the end of their constant battling, terror over whatever is coming next. something sharp sticks in his chest when he clears his throat. he doesn’t mind; the pain is just one more reminder of reality. 

the light is golden outside their tent. his left arm burns. he watches a little caterpillar crawl up the canvas folds at his feet and matches the mantra to his breathing. _this is not a genjutsu. this is not a genjutsu. this is all real._

then hashirama’s dark eyes meet his, and yet again he’s filled with wonder and awe and disbelief. how miraculous this all is, he thinks; how—impossible.

he stares into hashirama’s eyes all the same.


	7. bath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Hashirama invites him to the hotsprings because he knows Madara has had a stressful time lately. It's a great time, except for the fact that Hashirama makes delicious sounds getting into the hot water, and also seems oblivious to this.

“it’ll be good for both of us,” hashirama says when he suggests their little excursion, but madara knows that hashirama is thinking of him above anything else, and he’s touched by it. of course he accepts the offer. and hashirama is exactly right, he thinks, as he sinks into the water. they both needed this. madara feels his hair float off his back and notes with some vague annoyance that he perhaps should have tied it up before getting it wet because now it’s going to take eons to dry and _oh,_ there are twigs and pieces of thread and bits of leaves bobbing in the water around him like a halo of debris.

madara quickly collects a handful of soggy litter and slaps it down on the tiles behind his head as surreptitiously as possible. he chances a look behind him to make sure hashirama hasn’t seen. the screen is still shut; he still must be getting undressed.

he tries not to let that thought linger. _he’s_ already naked, but he’s up to his neck in hot water and steam and by now his hair is spread out in a dark fan around him, shielding his body from view. he supposes it’s not really _his_ body that he’s concerned about. any second now, hashirama will emerge from behind the screen, and madara will have to try not to watch him in his nakedness as he descends into the water…and then they’ll sit together in the heat and the steam and what is he going to _do._

he hears hashirama’s footsteps on the tile. the shoji slides open. madara can’t help it. he stares. just for a split second, he feels his sharingan threaten to flicker on, and he forces it back down with some difficulty. hashirama is so _beautiful._ his hair is tied up in a towel, except for a few damp strands sticking to the sides of his face, curling over his cheekbones. his legs are long and powerful, and his shoulders are so broad and solid, and his chest—and the wide expanse of his abdomen—he’s holding two sake cups, one in each hand, and he grins at madara as he slides the screen shut with one well-placed knuckle. this is completely _fine,_ madara tells himself resolutely. they’ve seen each other naked before. this is nothing new. he can feel the heat rising in his face. hashirama sits down on the tile and sets the sake down next to him and madara tries, _oh_ he tries, to ignore the way his ass curves and his muscles ripple as he crosses his legs and dips one finger in the water.

“nice night for a bath,” hashirama says, and he’s right; the air outside is cold and crisp—strange for spring—and the moon is blazing in the sky above their heads. even a few stars have come out by now. madara tries very hard not to think about putting his hands on hashirama’s hips and pressing his face to his pelvis. he needs something to _do._ he gathers his hair into a very wet thick ponytail and tries to wring some of the water from it, and then winces as he discovers a live ladybug crawling somewhere around the region of his left ear. he picks her up on his index finger and sets her free.

hashirama watches her fly off towards the bamboo across the way. he bites his lip.

“i could comb your hair, if you wanted,” he says, and madara thinks for a split second that there’s a hint of something strange in his voice. “i could braid it, too.”

every muscle in madara’s body strains against the resounding _yes_ threatening to burst from his throat. “all right,” he says instead, making sure to pretend to consider the offer for a few seconds before responding. hashirama uncrosses his legs and slides feetfirst into the water and—

_ohhhhhhh fuck_

madara blinks. his first impression is that his brain is simply filling in gaps that are not really there, that perhaps he’s been thinking too hard about hashirama’s nipples and is now imagining these— _noises_ coming from him. but he’s not imagining anything. the noises are _real._ even worse, hashirama isn’t done.

“ohhhh mnngh,” hashirama says, settling into the bath with a soft splash. he picks up one of the sake cups. “oof.”

madara’s face is painfully red now. “drink?” hashirama says, offering him the cup. he’s too bemused to answer. he accepts it silently, raises it to his lips. it’s hot. it tastes sweet, madara thinks, and knows hashirama must have picked out this, too, to appeal to madara’s specific tastes. he squeezes his eyes shut. hashirama is painfully close now. he can feel hashirama’s chakra flowing through the water towards him, tingling on every inch of his bare skin. he must not think too hard about it, he tells himself again. he must not—

“ohh,” hashirama groans, stretching out his neck. madara watches him, entranced. it’s no use. he’s moving closer and closer with ever second. madara can almost feel his breath like this—or is he imaging it? is it just the steam? has the sake already gone to his head? hashirama scratches his nose, tucks a strand of hair up under the towel wrapped around his head, and madara forces himself to bite back a smile. he’s perfect like this. he wants to memorize every contour of hashirama’s chest, run his fingers down the line between his shoulder blades.

“madara?” hashirama says, frowning suddenly. “what is it?”

everything seems to be moving in slow motion, and rendering in acute detail. his brain has processed the words before he realizes exactly what they mean. “what?” he says intelligently.

“is there danger nearby?” hashirama says, setting his own sake down on the tile and glancing behind them, fully alert. “did something happen at the inn?”

“what?” madara says again, still staring at hashirama’s chest. then his brain catches up to his eyes and he realizes that he really _has_ activated his sharingan, and is currently committing every droplet of water on hashirama’s skin to memory. quickly he shakes himself and turns it off. he still can’t seem to look away from hashirama’s body. “no. sorry. all fine.”

hashirama is still staring at him in mild concern. “does it activate on its own, sometimes?” he says. “i could take a look at your eyes, make sure everything is functioning properly…”

“no, thank you,” madara barely manages to gasp out, because the concept alone of looking into hashirama’s eyes at this distance might really kill him for good.


	8. lotus

dusk is falling outside, he knows it. this meeting has gone on for longer than he had hoped it would. the light must be soft and blue outside by now. the clan still meets on every full moon, the way they’ve done since before madara was born. he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, joints aching, head pounding, but in his heart and his mind he’s lying sideways in bed watching hashirama’s lotus floating in its jar, waiting for its single pink bud to bloom.

“i’ll never take on a senju student,” someone is shouting. “i’d die before i gave up this clan’s secrets. your brother would never have let this happen.”

madara sits there and takes it. _izuna wouldn’t have let a lot of things happen._

“nor will i let the senju clan teach my children,” someone else says loudly. voices of agreement sound across the meeting hall. “i won’t allow our history to fade away.”

“it doesn’t matter anymore,” says somebody else. “the uchiha clan is already dead.”

candles are flickering in their brackets. he’s heard this refrain a thousand times. the clan was doomed the instant the alliance was formed. the instant madara led his final charge against the senju. the instant he stole izuna’s eyes. the instant he became the clan leader.

 _my heart is not made of stone,_ madara thinks, and remembers the lotus on his windowsill wistfully.

* * *

he meets hashirama outside the academy at nightfall, like they had planned. it smells like rain. hashirama’s chakra is warm and bright. “i’m glad you came,” hashirama says, his eyes wide. madara is so tired.

“here,” madara mumbles instead of answering, and thrusts a tiny carved hand-mirror into hashirama’s hands. “i made this for you.”

hashirama turns it over, runs his thumb over the rough-cut wood, feeling the multitude of craters and bumps. his face goes soft and his eyes light up.

“is this…?”

“the moon,” madara says. “it’s an old tradition of ours. i’m sure you could carve a better one.”

“madara, it’s beautiful,” hashirama says, and madara thanks every deity he can think of that hashirama can’t see his blushing face in the dark.

* * *

he wants it to be real. he can pretend, during the day. it’s much easier then. but then when night falls they go their separate ways, split apart and retreat home in the dark. he wants to clasp hashirama’s hands in his own and never let go.

rain dots the path as he walks. clouds are sliding past the moon. he shivers, reaching for his keys. it’s raining on the family of finches nesting in the eaves above his front door, and he looks up at them huddled in their quivering pile and wipes the water from his brow.

the rain is getting into his heart. he closes the door behind him, kicks off his sandals. the house is as dry and cold and sparse as usual, and he blinks in the darkness and hears the familiar rustling of the baby birds in their box. the noise grounds him.

(“vultures mate for life, don’t they?” hashirama had said, weeks ago now.

“some do,” madara had told him. they both peered down into the box, watching the tiny blind vulture chicks wobble against one another in a little heap. )

he runs one hand over his face. his hair is damp, and his mantle is full of raindrops. he hangs it on the bedroom door and gets changed.

the rain is too quiet, too muffled in here. he puts the record player on and ties back his hair and hugs the pillow tight. all the tiredness of the day has collected in his bones. he imagines hashirama gently turning the hand-mirror over and over in his hands, remembers the solid warmth of his thumb on the contours of the wood, remembers slicing his own thumb with the carving knife and biting back a curse and putting the thing aside to find a piece of plaster.

the bed is cold. madara is cold in it. he blinks up at the rain outside the window, and then without warning, hashirama’s lotus flower bursts open in an explosion of soft pink.

he wonders if hashirama is thinking of him.

madara laughs, his heart feeling heavy, and falls asleep to to the gentle scratching of the record player on the shelf.


	9. dream

_(its attack is swift, furious and deadly.)_

he’s dreaming of hashirama’s chakra again, of its sprawling sweetness and resolute summery heat. it’s nearly intoxicating like this. today is far from the first time he’s fallen asleep in hashirama’s house. inside those walls the chakra saturates everything. he can even feel it humming in the wood grain of the floorboards, and it fizzes against his bare feet as soon as he takes his shoes off in hashirama’s parlor. 

_(in the death grapple it clings ferociously to its victim,)_

how unfair it is, that he was born a sensor. to feel hashirama’s chakra so closely, so intimately, but to be unable to touch…how he wants to reach out and lay his hands on hashirama’s warm skin, to feel the chakra flowing through their entwined bodies…but still the chasm between them is too wide, too painful to bear. 

_(careless of its own safety until the unfortunate creature succumbs to its steely grip.)_

he opens his eyes and the breath falls out of his lungs because they’re pressed together, all tangled legs and feet and the dizzying closeness of their torsos—hashirama’s warm bulk has him half-pinned to the couch and his arm is tingling with pins and needles and how could they have _done_ this, fallen asleep so carelessly and drifted towards each other in their exhaustion—madara doesn’t dare breathe, doesn’t dare think; the only thought in his mind, hanging there without him wishing it into existence, is how wonderful it is and how guilty he feels to be so carefully enveloped in hashirama’s warmth.

_(its stroke is terrible.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics from ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush.


	10. seishi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: He is approached by a young Uchiha who asks how one would know if they've fallen in love.

“ah,” madara says. he considers seishi for a moment, watching her young pinched face, the uncertainty folded between her eyebrows. her hands twist together. his eyes fall upon her bitten fingernails, freshly massacred and leaking blood at the cuticles. izuna used to bite his nails too. “come on,” he says. “sit.”

they take a seat in the grass under a pair of cherry trees. she curls up immediately and puts her arms around her knees, looking tinier than usual. “it’s hard to explain,” madara says. “i don’t know how to put it into words.”

he imagines hashirama, his solid warmth and his blooming chakra and the way he makes madara feel like his chest is on fire. “you see them in everything,” madara says, watching a little striped sparrow bobbing on a branch above their heads. “you see something wonderful and you think, i want them to be by my side for this.”

seishi looks at him, then at the sparrow. she bites her lip.

“and _everything_ is wonderful,” madara says, “because what a miracle it is, that you both are alive together at the same time…” 

seishi is trembling. madara frowns.

“but you don’t need me to tell you all this, do you,” he says. he tilts his head at her. “you already know what it’s like.” 

slowly, she nods. the laugh that bursts unbidden from her throat then is exactly the sound madara had expected, a combination of trepidation and relief and frustration and confusion and—and that’s what it’s _like,_ madara thinks, that’s _exactly_ what it’s like, feeling like you’re falling from a great height and you can’t stop.

“let me see your eyes,” madara says. she blinks up at him. scarlet flows into her irises. one fuzzy tomoe spins into place in each of them. madara presses his hand to his mouth, feels a lump forming in his throat. it really _is_ miraculous, he thinks, this village that he and hashirama have built—a village that has now produced a sharingan not born from war but from the desire, the _need_ to love and be loved in return.

“madara-sama?” seishi says, her eyes turning dark and curious again. madara blinks. his own eyes are wet. 

“congratulations,” he says thickly. and yes, he thinks, this is a part of loving too, this new outpouring of strange and inopportune emotions. he has hashirama to thank for that, he supposes. he’s still getting used to a lot of things. some come easier than others. but it’s wonderfully easy to remember, with increasing frequency, that this life here in the village is indeed worth being alive for.


	11. july

madara’s thigh squeaks against the floorboards. everything is sticky from the heat and the humidity. the shōji is half open, and as he watches, a halfhearted breeze tickles the hydrangeas just outside in hashirama’s courtyard. a limp pear petal lands in the pond.

madara tosses his fan aside. it’s not helping to cool him down in the slightest. “do we have any more watermelon?”

hashirama smiles. he’s sprawled against the wall with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. “you ate it all,” he says. “you’ll spoil your dinner, the way you carry on.”

madara groans. he lifts his hair off his back, wincing from the sweat on his fingers, and then shrugs and pours himself another cup of sake. “too hot.”

he glances over at hashirama, who has slid even farther down against the wall. madara snorts. “are—are you _wilting?”_

“yes,” hashirama whines, his hair spilling all over the floorboards. “pass me the sake.”

the sky outside is a lovely soft gray. madara catches a whiff of ozone, and then watches as tiny raindrops suddenly bruise the hydrangeas in the courtyard. the surface of the pond goes blurry from the rain.

“that’s nice,” he mumbles. he holds his hand out into the courtyard and lets the drops speckle his palm. hashirama takes a long sip of sake, watching him.

“sunset soon,” hashirama says. “we should cook the fish.”

“right,” madara says, finding himself suddenly unable to move. he shrugs his robes off one shoulder, liking the sensation of the fabric slipping down his skin. 

the gesture is not lost on hashirama. he gives madara a very intense look, as if all the heavy heat of the day is all at once concentrated in his gaze.

madara’s face suddenly feels very hot. his head is heavy. he can’t seem to look away.

hashirama leans in to tickle his chin, and his knee knocks into the now-empty sake bottle. madara laughs as it rolls to the side, dripping a tiny bit on the floor, but finds that he’s not too concerned with cleaning it up. hashirama is still swerving resolutely towards him. madara can count his eyelashes like this. his exhale brushes madara’s cheek, soft and hot. then he smirks, tilts his head, and plants a kiss on madara’s mouth.

madara exhales in quiet surprise. hashirama’s mouth always feels so _good._ he catches hashirama’s lower lip between his teeth, loving the little gasp that hashirama gives in response, and runs his splayed hands down hashirama’s bare chest, feels the muscles shiver and contract at his touch.

“come here,” madara growls against hashirama’s mouth, and tugs him closer. he’s a little dizzy from drinking, and his limbs feel somehow heavier than usual, but it feels good. he always loves hashirama’s warm weight on him. he seizes hashirama’s still-clothed hips and presses their bodies together. hashirama squirms.

“oh,” hashirama gasps, without warning. “madara, your eyes.”

madara blinks. he realizes at once what’s happened. his sharingan has turned on; he can feel the chakra buzzing in his skull and the sudden pristine clarity that comes with it. “sorry,” he mutters. “got excited.”

“they look like flowers,” hashirama says, his own eyes almost brimming over with something nearly indefinable, “beautiful scarlet flowers.”

“drunken sap,” madara says, but he can’t quite stop himself from smiling.


	12. aoba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: He is approached by a fellow Uchiha, one who has recently become a new parent. The man asks Madara, respectfully but with some measure of nerves, about his opinion on children awakening their Sharingan.

madara takes a breath, lets it out slowly.

“i don’t know,” he says at last. “i’m sorry. i—i don’t know.”

giichi sits down heavily on the nearest stump. “that’s fine,” he says mournfully. he bites his lip. “i don’t need an answer, I just—want to talk, i guess.”

madara sits down too. “fine,” he echoes, a little stiffly. he clears his throat. “congratulations, by the way.”

giichi’s face brightens. “thank you.”

“what’s her name?”

“aoba,” says giichi, and madara can see in his face that he’s overjoyed. “she’s precious. six pounds exactly.”

“and healthy?”

giichi chews on his lip some more. “yes, thankfully,” he says. “that senju—i don’t know how he did it.”

madara just nods. he doesn’t know how hashirama does it either.

“i didn’t know the sharingan was going to hurt this much,” giichi bursts out, “when i first awakened it. all i remember is—i was so excited. everyone was so proud. it was the best day of my life. i was so _young._ ”

madara listens, and remembers. it’s a bitter thing. he remembers mostly jealousy. and stark, white-hot outrage, that giichi, only two years his senior, had managed to awaken his sharingan before madara awakened his. and then it had been naori. and hikaku. and izuna. and on and on until it seemed he was the only one left. he was supposed to be _strong._

“i want her to have a happy life, you know?” giichi says. “i don’t care about prestige. i don’t care about honor. i don’t care about—“

his face flashes in horror for a split second before he manages to stop himself.

he would never say _i don’t care about the clan,_ madara knows. none of them would. but he understands. he knows how it feels to want so badly to cast away years upon years of tradition, to disregard generations worth of suffering and agony, tragedy and trauma passed down through family lines, just to enjoy a cozy consequence-less life in the present. but the village is a real entity now. reality is moving in a new direction, and there is no going back.

giichi is crying.

“you know, i looked down at her in my arms that first time,” he says, “and i saw her face, and i just—i just—“

madara reaches for giichi’s shoulder, but hesitates. he’s never had children. he can’t begin to imagine what giichi had felt, holding his newborn daughter. he doesn’t dare intrude on this moment. but giichi came to him, specifically, and is now seeking guidance and solace. the notion terrifies him, for a split second.

“we didn’t ask for the sharingan,” madara says slowly. “we didn’t ask for any of the pain that came with it. but it’s ours nonetheless.”

giichi is silent.

“you know, when we were kids,” he starts, then hesitates. madara watches him out of the corner of his eye, wary. cicadas drone away in the trees above them.

“i’m sorry for how i treated you back then,” giichi says quietly. “i’m not proud of it.”

“we’ve both grown up,” madara says, staring ahead. his face softens. “sorry i beat you to a pulp that time.”

“i started it,” giichi says, smiling halfheartedly. “probably deserved it too.”

madara almost laughs. “probably.”

they sit silently for a while. but the silence is warmer now—more comfortable. crickets are chirping in the woodpile. madara spies one on a log, watches it crawl along the wood and settle into a little knot at its base.

“how _did_ you end up awakening your sharingan, anyway?” giichi says abruptly. “if you don’t mind me asking.”

“oh,” madara says, caught off guard. “it just—it was—oh, i don’t remember anymore. it all happened so fast.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided Giichi is this guy with the eye tattooed on his forehead: https://i.imgur.com/O97xMfv.png


	13. praise (1)

“you yawn like a cat,” hashirama says, biting back laughter. “may i?”

madara grins lazily and offers him the joint again. but to his surprise, instead of plucking it from his fingers, hashirama leans in, his head tilted slightly, and takes a deep drag from it there in madara’s hand. madara feels hashirama’s warm lips purse against his fingers, feels hashirama’s hot breath on his palm, and loses the last shred of restraint still left in his body. it feels _good._ hashirama slides back against the wall, shaking a stray strand of hair out of his face, and blows a long curvy dragon. he turns to madara and grins as it dissolves into the air.

madara watches it go, watches the afternoon sky turn darker, and at once is seized with a bold recklessness. “come here,” he says, and puts the smoldering joint between his teeth. and, _god,_ it’s better than the katon; he can feel hashirama’s chakra practically jump with excitement as he realizes what madara is about to do.

madara imagines hot ash on his tongue, feeling with some trepidation as if he’s seconds from swallowing embers. he’s instantly aware of the space between the joint and his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and something about it being there sends a jolt of arousal rocketing through him. he wants hashirama’s tongue in his mouth too, wants hashirama’s lips pressed against his own, smothering him—

hashirama smiles up at him and there’s something mischievous in his eyes that cements madara’s resolve. thunder is rolling somewhere in the distance, and for a split second he can smell petrichor through the smoke. he leans in, tugs hashirama’s collar with one hand. he can see the light on his own lips as hashirama inhales. the thing glows even harder as he blows onto it, and it’s not perfect; smoke is furling around between them in thin tendrils and clouds but it slides along the contours of hashirama’s nose and mouth and madara finishes with a long deep exhale that he’s sure turns his mouth into a glowing scarlet cavern. he hopes hashirama sees.

hashirama holds the smoke in his mouth for a long time. his eyes are closed; he slumps backwards against the wood. then he exhales, smoke pouring from his mouth and nose, and makes a soft sound in his throat.

“that’s good,” hashirama murmurs, his voice heavy. “you’re so good to me.”

madara’s throat nearly seizes up. he feels his nostrils flaring, feels his belly clench. “say that again.”

it’s not a request. he’s nearly seeing stars now; his knees have gone weak. “you’re so good to me,” hashirama repeats, his voice crackling like an ancient record, and madara shudders and fails to bite back the small helpless sound that slides from his lips. his mouth has gone slack. great fat raindrops are thudding intermittently against the stones, and in an instant the air is thick with shimmering water—but the sun is out too, now, and madara watches, a little dizzy, as lightning splits the sky and jeweled raindrops shiver on the water-heavy branches of the cherry tree at the edge of his garden. he wonders if hashirama is feeling as good as he is, and (if he weren’t so high, the still-rational part of his brain reminds him) he’s sure he’d be filled with shame, entertaining the faraway notion that hashirama could be feeling this good because of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by this tweet lol. https://twitter.com/unionjutsu/status/1249790569502695424


	14. how to heal

hashirama doesn’t look any older, but madara can tell. his chakra is wilder, harder to tame. it feels less and less human, and more and more…something else. his limbs are stiff and they creak like old wood, and sometimes when he sits very still for a long time (as he tends to do more and more often now) madara is afraid he’ll never move again. he creates plants more, without meaning to, and more than once madara has gone out to the garden and found him covered in creeping tendrils of moss, or had to push back layers of layers of ferns just to find his face and cradle it in his hands. it feels like the forest is slowly—but with steadily increasing urgency—calling him back.

 _not yet,_ madara thinks, clasping hashirama’s rough-hewn hand in his own. _not yet._

**Author's Note:**

> Come bother Madara on tumblr @ gaishuisshoku or ooc @ armorsleevedsinglehit


End file.
